DETROIT — Michigan will serve as the nation’s political test case Tuesday to determine the severity of any cracks in support of the two major parties’ likely nominees for president, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Eight months before the Nov. 5 general election, Michigan ballots will be tallied in presidential primary contests. The initial results are expected to come quickly in many areas of the state after polls close Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
On the Democratic side, Biden, the incumbent president, will all but certainly win Michigan’s race. But there’s been a push among prominent Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit, to get people to vote “uncommitted” in protest of Biden’s handling of the Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas.
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On the Republican side, Trump, the former president, will likely be the victor. But former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has been mounting a challenge, arguing that the political “chaos” that has followed Trump has cost the GOP in Michigan. Republicans in 2022 lost full control of the state Legislature for the first time in nearly 40 years, statewide races for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, as well as a congressional seat in west Michigan for the first time since the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.
“I truly believe that Michigan might very well be the thermometer for Republicanism,” said Jimmy Greene, a longtime Michigan political operative who’s supporting Haley in the primary.
The campaigns of Trump and Biden have said they want solid showings Tuesday in Michigan as signs as strength for their likely rematch this fall.
“We have to let them know that a freight train is coming in November,” Trump said during a Feb. 17 campaign stop in Oakland County.
Michigan is expected to be one of a handful of states that ultimately decide who leads the country for the next four years. In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Michigan by 3 percentage points, 51%-48%, or 154,000 votes. Trump won the state in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10,700 votes or less than a percentage point.
Voting in favor of Biden in Tuesday’s primary is part of demonstrating support for him over Trump, argued Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s transportation secretary, during an appearance in Michigan on Feb. 7.
“Making sure that Michigan shows up in a big way, especially in its first outing as an early primary state, I think, is a really important part of it,” Buttigieg said.
Will primaries be historically lopsided?
At least one of Michigan’s presidential nominating contests — either the Democratic or Republican race — has been competitive for the last two decades.
It’s possible that on Tuesday night Trump and Biden post a duo of historically large victories in the state.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump points out into the crowd at a campaign rally in Waterford Township, Mich., Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
The last time that happened on both sides of the aisle, to a degree, was 1996 when then-President Bill Clinton didn’t appear on the Democratic ballot, so the choice “uncommitted” won big. In the other primary, Republican Bob Dole achieved what was described as a ” resounding ” victory over conservative commentator Pat Buchanan.
In that contest, Dole got about 51% of the vote to Buchanan’s 34%.
The 1996 primaries are the closest analogy to what’s happening in 2024, said Bill Ballenger, a former state lawmaker and longtime political commentator in Michigan.
Much of the excitement of the races is focused on how many Democratic primary voters will select “uncommitted” instead of Biden, Ballenger said.
“I don’t think it’s going to make much difference,” Ballenger said.
Will protest vote embarrass Biden?
A last-minute campaign led by Arab American and Muslim activists has been urging Michigan Democrats to protest Biden’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza by voting “uncommitted” in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
The strategy of the Listen to Michigan campaign has been two-fold: Making the case that choosing “uncommitted” on the ballot is a vote for a cease-fire and working to turn people out to vote, said Abbas Alawieh, a spokesman for the effort. The latter is a particularly heavy lift, however, having had three weeks to spread the word.
Mona Marwari, of Dearborn, calls a voter for the Listen to Michigan uncommitted vote campaign in Detroit, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. Michigan voters are poised to cast ballots in their respective presidential primaries on Tuesday but a feeling of voter apathy has swept over the state. Both major parties have said that they must win Michigan to secure the White House this year but they’re struggling to connect with voters. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
“The central goal is to create pressure on President Biden to call for a cease-fire, and we already feel like we achieved that goal,” Alawieh said. “I think what happens on Tuesday is every additional vote we get for uncommitted ― for a cease-fire and against the war ― will be growing our political power, flexing our political muscle as a growing anti-war movement.”
The Listen to Michigan campaign had an “an extremely humble and modest” budget by presidential campaign standards, spending about $100,000 on mail and digital advertising and another $100,000 on organizing, voter contact and operational expenses, campaign manager Layla Elabed said.
Campaign organizers have said they’d like to hit 10,000 to 15,000 votes for uncommitted, with Alawieh noting that Trump won Michigan in 2016 by just under 11,000 votes.
“If we have at least that many votes coming out of this campaign, I think that sends a very strong message that in Michigan, where margins are expected to be razor thin, we have enough to make or break an election,” Alawieh said. “And to ensure this election doesn’t go to Trump, President Biden needs to change his policy.”
Joseph Boots calls a voter for the Listen to Michigan uncommitted vote campaign in Detroit, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
The pro-Israel group Democratic Majority for Israel launched a digital ad Friday opposing the Listen to Michigan campaign: “Voting uncommitted hurts Biden, which helps Donald Trump and his hateful agenda.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Sunday urged Democrats to cast a ballot for Biden, but expressed some concern about the potential impact of the uncommitted vote.
“I’m not sure what we’re going to see on Tuesday, to tell you the truth,” Whitmer told Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday show. “I know that we’ve got this primary and we will see differences of opinion. I’m just not sure what to expect.”
Glengariff Group pollster Richard Czuba said he’s going to be watching not the number of votes for uncommitted Tuesday but the percentage of the overall Democratic vote that it takes. Ten percent would be “meh,” Czuba said, while 20% is attention-grabbing and 30% would signal Biden has problems with his Democratic base.
“The Biden campaign can relatively squash this entire conversation by keeping the uncommitted vote low, and the way to guarantee that is by turning out their own voters,” Czuba said. “And if not, it signals that somebody in Washington isn’t paying attention to Michigan.”
Lena Hazime, of Dearborn, calls a voter for the Listen to Michigan uncommitted vote campaign in Detroit, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Czuba pointed to the 1992 GOP presidential primary contests when Buchanan was consistently pulling 30% to 35%, signaling that President George H.W. Bush had a Republican base problem.
“Is this a small problem or a big problem?” he said. “That percentage is going to tell us a lot.”
If the “uncommitted” vote hits 15% or higher, those delegates won’t be assigned to any candidate and are free to vote as they please at the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago.
Is there a political shift in Dearborn?
With many eyes on the “uncommitted” vote in the Democratic presidential primary, Tuesday night could provide another way of testing whether Arab Americans’ political views are changing in favor of Republicans in Michigan.
Dearborn is the state’s seventh largest city. Of Dearborn’s nearly 110,000 residents, more than 56,000, a majority, identified as Middle Eastern or North African, according to Census Bureau data.
Voting statistics out of Dearborn after Tuesday’s primary could show if more Dearborn residents are choosing to vote in the Republican primary than in the past.
In 2020, for instance, 86% of the 22,000 ballots cast in the presidential primary in Dearborn were in the Democratic contest between Biden and Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. However, because the GOP race wasn’t heavily contested that year, a more accurate benchmark could be 2016 when there were nomination fights on both sides of the aisle.
In 2016, 60% of the ballots cast in the presidential primary in Dearborn were in the Democratic race, according to data from the Wayne County clerk’s office.
Can Haley exceed expectations?
Haley made her first campaign stop in Michigan of 2024 on Sunday night in Troy, two days before the primary election.
The former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor has been arguing that she’s better positioned to take on Biden than Trump, who lost in 2020, and that the country ” won’t survive four more years of Trump’s chaos.”
But Trump remains a heavy favorite in the GOP race in Michigan, where the state’s entire Republican congressional delegation has already endorsed him.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley gives a speech at her primary day watch party at The Charleston Place in Charleston, South Carolina, on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump beat the former governor in her home state. (Arvin Temkar/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS)
Ballenger, the longtime Michigan political pundit, said Haley will need independents and Democrats to cross over to vote in the GOP primary to have any chance of winning Tuesday. A similar mix of voters helped propel then-U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona to a surprise upset over eventual GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush in Michigan’s 2000 primary, Ballenger said.
To bolster Haley’s campaign, she needs to at least perform better than a 25%-75% loss to Trump, Ballenger said.
“I think she’d have to get something like 30% before she could really claim she’s done anything,” Ballenger said.
Greene, the Michigan political consultant who’s supporting Haley, said she can do better than many expect she will in the state. If Haley gets 40% or 45% of the vote, Greene said he’ll be happy.
There are many Republicans in Michigan who have supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah who will vote for Haley, he said.
“I think they’re tired of the shenanigans of what MAGA Republicans have done to the party,” Greene said.
Will the youth vote falter?
One category of voters to watch in Tuesday’s returns will be young voters — ages 18-29.
Michigan led the nation in 2022 in terms of turnout among youth voters at 37%, comprising a growing portion of the overall general electorate in the state. The trend helped Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer win a second term by about 10 percentage points over Republican Tudor Dixon.
Biden decisively won the youth vote in 2020, garnering 66% compared with 35% for Trump, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
But polling has shown that young people are unhappy with Biden over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. An early January poll by the Lansing-based Glengariff Group showed 69% of likely voters ages 18-29 disapproved of the job Biden is doing as president.
FILE – President Joe Biden meets with UAW members during a campaign stop at a phone bank in the UAW Region 1 Union Hall, Feb. 1, 2024, in Warren, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Glengariff pollster Czuba said he’ll be watching Ingham and Washtenaw counties and maybe Kalamazoo County for a “pure view” of young Democrats, where they are concentrated on college campuses.
“I’m watching if they turn out — which is a giant ‘if’ in this kind of election,” Czuba said, referring to a low-turnout primary contest.
“The reason why we should look at these college areas specifically is it’s going to give us a sense of whether this Gaza issue has morphed beyond the Arab American community to the young people community.”
How do voters prefer to cast ballots?
Tuesday’s presidential primary is the first statewide election in Michigan with early voting after a successful 2022 ballot proposal required clerks to offer the option.
The primary’s results will eventually show what percentage of voters chose to use early voting — feeding a ballot in person into a vote-counting tabulator — instead of absentee ballots or in-person voting on Election Day. The numbers will paint a picture of what elections will look like in the state going forward, will show whether Republicans and Democrats view the options differently and will inform campaigns about how to communicate to voters about the choices.
In the 2022 gubernatorial election, about 4.45 million Michigan voters participated. About 1.8 million of them, 40%, used absentee ballots, according to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office.
More than 50,000 Michigan voters had cast their ballots at an early voting site since the start of early voting Feb. 17, Benson’s office said in a Friday statement.
Adrian Hemond, a Michigan political consultant and CEO of the firm Grassroots Midwest, said it’s possible more than half of the vote will have been cast before Election Day through early voting or absentee ballots.
“I think it’s one of the very few interesting things about the primary Tuesday,” Hemond said.
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